An Ocean Apart (12 page)

George sat back in his chair and swung it round to look out the window. For a moment he said nothing. “When are you thinking of leaving?” he eventually asked, his voice sounding thin.

“In a month's time,” Robert replied jauntily, relieved that he had managed to break the news without receiving instant rebuke or mutterings about repercussions to the company. “That should give me enough time to get last year's accounts finalized. The new incumbent will then be able to start afresh without having to sort out any of my idiosyncrasies.”

George continued to gaze distantly out the window, then, closing his eyes, he began to shake his head almost imperceptibly from side to side as a feeling of anger began to rumble away within his mind. Thanks, Robert, he thought to himself, this is exactly what I need right now! Not only do I have Duncan breathing down the back of my neck with regards to David's future with the company, but I also have David to deal with. He's not in any fit state to handle himself at present, let alone this American trip, and now you come traipsing into my office and tell me that we have to find a new financial director. So you think it's time you bloody retired, do you? Well,
bully for you,
because I'm meant to have been retired for the past ten years, but here I am back again having to sort out everybody's damned problems.

Robert watched him closely as he turned back from the window, noticing that the usual ruddiness had drained from George's face, suddenly making him look extremely old. Concerned, he leaned forward in his chair and was about to ask the old man if he was feeling quite well when George took a deep breath and slapped the arms of his chair purposefully.

“Well, I suppose we'd better start looking for a replacement for you, Robert,” he said in one expulsion of air. “You'll be a hard act to follow, you know.”

“Thanks for saying so, George,” Robert said, sitting back again, “but I really don't think it will be that difficult. I believe Duncan has already got his eye on the present financial director of the malting company in Elgin.”

“Has he, by heck!” George barked out. “How long has he known of your plans?”

“I told him last week,” Robert answered meekly, somewhat taken aback by the vehemence of George's retort. “He was very sad that I had decided to go, but felt that it was a good move for me.”

Resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, George linked his hands together and chewed pensively at the side of his mouth. “What's his constitutional remit?” he asked abruptly.

“What do you mean, George?”

George glowered at Robert across the desk and repeated the question. “Is Duncan allowed to hire and fire employees of Glendurnich Distilleries Limited without consultation with the board?”

Robert nodded slowly. “Yes, I believe that that was one of the conditions to which we agreed when he joined the company.”

George rested his elbows on the desk and began rubbing at his forehead with his fingers, suddenly realizing that not only could Duncan appoint whom he liked as financial director, but also that if this remit was taken to its extremes, it could have implications on his son's own future on the board of directors.

“God, why the hell did we agree to that?”

“I think,” Robert replied timidly, aware that George was becoming quite irascible, “that we were all very keen to get Duncan as managing director.”

George sat back in his chair. “Yes, I suppose so.” He paused for a moment, looking back out of the window. “Robert, he didn't … erm … Duncan didn't ask you to leave, did he?”

Robert shook his head briskly. “Oh, no! Nothing like that. It really was all my idea. Heavens, no! I don't think even Duncan would have the nerve to do that!”

George smiled across at him. “I'm sure not, Robert. I'm sorry I had to ask you that, but I just wanted to make sure that things weren't going on behind my back.”

Robert stood up, taking George's climbdown as an opportune point at which to end their meeting, and replaced his chair against the wall of the office. “No, not at all, George. Duncan can be a little, well, self-centred sometimes, but he's a good business man, and looking at the first draft of last year's accounts, I would say he's doing well for the company.”

George looked across at him and nodded. “I'm sure, Robert … and thanks, I value your opinion.”

“I'm happy, as always, to give it, George, and now if you'll excuse me, I must get on with those accounts.” He grinned nervously at George. “Now that time is of the essence, so to speak.”

“Of course, and Robert, thank you for all you have done for the company over the years. You've been a real stalwart.”

With a fleeting smile, Robert turned briskly on his heel and left the room. For a moment, George stared at the closed door, then pressed the intercom button for his secretary.

Ten seconds later there were two small knocks on the door. Without waiting for a bidding, Mhairi entered the room, carrying a notepad and pen in her hand. The young secretary came over to George's desk and stood in front of him. He looked up at her and smiled.

“Right, Mhairi. I wonder if you could confirm with Devonshire Place that both Lady Inchelvie and I will be staying on Tuesday night?”

Mhairi began to scribble on her notepad. “I take it that Lady Inchelvie won't be going to the conference?”

George shook his head. “No, no, she won't. She's really just taking the opportunity of the lift so that she can go on to Perth to visit the grandchildren at their school.”

“Very good,” Mhairi said, making a final full stop on her notepad. “Is that it, my lord?”

“Not quite. Could you telephone British Airways and book a return flight from Glasgow to New York for Tuesday morning?”

“This coming Tuesday morning, my lord?”

“That's right.” He paused for a moment. “And I think you should make the ticket open-ended, Mhairi.”

She waited, her pencil poised above the notepad. When George didn't continue, she asked, “And whose name should be on the ticket?”

George lifted his hand in apology. “Ah yes, sorry about that. It's for Mr. David.”

Mhairi nodded and scribbled on the notepad.

“That's it, Mhairi. I'd be grateful if you could confirm all that.”

“Certainly, my lord.” She turned and walked briskly to the door. As she left the room, George swung his chair round to face the window and, picking up his pen, he began to turn it top to base, over and over, each time bringing it down harder on the surface of his desk. After a moment, he took the top off the pen and, with two heavy strokes, scored out his memorandum for Robert. He threw the pen on the desk and sat back in his chair, an exhausted expression on his face.

“I hope you're not up to anything, Duncan my boy,” he murmured under his breath, “I just hope you're not up to anything.”

*   *   *

Pushing open the door of the still-house, David was immediately met with the hot, heady smell of whisky distillation in progress. He climbed the four well-worn stone steps and walked out onto the steel-meshed floor that ran the full length of the high building, fifteen feet above the base of the still-pans. The still-house hissed like a pressure cooker, drowning out the clanging resonance of his footsteps on the grid flooring as he walked to the far end of the room past the four huge highly polished copper stills. He climbed the metal staircase and made his way along the narrow gantry that ran level with the highest point of the stills. Half-way along, he stopped outside a door newly painted in bright green and stencilled in white with the word
CANTEEN
. He hesitated a moment before pushing it open and entering.

Despite the overpowering smell of cigarette smoke, the workers' new canteen was bright and airy, having been converted from an old sky-lighted sack-loft when the old canteen was swallowed up in the refurbishment works. At one end, a loading door had been knocked out and replaced with a full-length window, so that from where he stood, David could see all the way down to the river below. At the other end, a modern Formica unit housed a stainless-steel sink, a refrigerator, and a microwave oven, while a brand-new Cona coffeemaker sat, still boxed, on the worktop, a marked indication that the work-force preferred their own vacuum flasks of hot sweet tea. The whole place might have resembled a smart well-appointed kitchen had it not been for the fact that the men, in illogical but pointed rebellion against their eviction from the old canteen, had voted to bring their furniture with them. The centre of the room, therefore, was strewn with an ill assortment of rickety, broken-backed chairs, gathered haphazardly around a long wooden table, its surface stained with mug rings and the dark brown, pitted lesions of cigarette burns. Above this was hung the wall's only adornment—a large calendar still turned to the month of March, which showed a blonde, well-developed young girl pretending to undo the wheel-nut of a lorry without the protection of a single stitch of clothing.

Around the table sat three men, all dressed in T-shirts and coveralls, drinking steaming mugs of tea and reading tabloid newspapers that were spread out in front of them. They looked across to where David stood and rose slowly to their feet, mumbling indiscernible greetings in his direction while casting embarrassed and uneasy glances both at each other and at the clock above the sink.

“Don't get up, please!” David said, also feeling embarrassed at their reaction to his entry. He looked across at one of the men. “How are you, Dougie?”

Pulling a fully laden ashtray towards him on the table, Dougie Masson stubbed out the butt of a self-rolled cigarette and walked over to David, wiping his hands on the back of his dungarees. He was as wide as he was tall, a little terrier of a man in his early fifties who had the sides of his head shaved down to a grey stubble to lessen the contrast with its polished dome. For twenty-five years, he had served in the army, at first with the Seaforths and then finishing off a proud and unblemished career as a colour sergeant in Queen's Own Highlanders in the same platoon as David. During that time, David, as a young and very green second lieutenant, had come to trust and rely on the experienced and much-respected little man, so much so that when they eventually demobbed together, he had felt strangely honoured when Dougie asked him if he might be able to pull a few strings with his father to get him a job in the distillery. Within a month, he was taken on as a trainee still-house operator, and since then their relationship had developed, not into a close friendship, but into an alliance built both on mutual respect and their ability to talk straight with each other.

Dougie grasped David's hand in a vice-like grip. “Good tae see ye back, Mr. David,” he said in a voice that was as deep and as gruff as a gravel-pit. “Are you keeping yourself well?”

“Yup, I think so.”

“Glad tae hear it.” Dougie stood back and scratched at the taut thick muscle of his tattooed forearm. “The lads, well, we were all very sorry tae hear about your wife. That was a real bugger, sir.”

David folded his arms and looked down at the ground, pushing a cigarette end under the table with his foot. “Yuh, I'm afraid it was.”

Dougie glanced at him, then back to his workmates, who had meantime gone back to reading their newspapers. He walked up close to David, gave him a brief wink, and nodded his head sideways in the direction of the door. “I'm just awa' back tae work, sir.”

Understanding his message, David turned to follow him out, but not before raising his hand in silent farewell to the other two men. They looked up momentarily, reciprocating the gesture with a brief flick of their heads before returning to their reading.

“How're things with you, then?” David asked, leaning his elbows on the gantry barrier next to Dougie, as he looked down with a frown of concentration onto the still-house floor.

“Och, no' bad. Could be worse. We've been havin' a real bugger of a problem with that number three still over there.” He pointed a stubby finger down to where an oxyacetylene welder stood amongst a cluster of tools. “Only just managed to get it sorted. That's why we're all a bit late in taking our tea-break.”

“What was up with it?” David asked, looking down on the still.

“Och, it developed a leak in the steam kettle yesterday afternoon.” He chuckled. “Bloody good thing that Jimmy has a big nose. It was him who picked it up in the condensate going to the boiler. Anyway, we had to empty the still overnight so we could isolate the steam valve, and we've just finished spot-welding the leak about an hour ago. We should be able to get the thing refilled this afternoon.”

“Ah. Well done.”

Dougie turned and grinned at David, knowing full well that a technical engineering fault in the distillery was not something of which he had great knowledge. However, when he noticed that David's eyes were focused blankly onto the still-house floor, the smile vanished from his face and he began slowly shaking his head.

“Och, Davie lad, ye're a wee bit distracted at the minute, aren't ye?”

David looked at him and nodded. “Yup, you could say that,” he said with a long, heavy sigh. He turned round and leaned his back against the rail.

“So,” Dougie asked quietly, “what have you been doing with yourself since, well, then?”

“Gardening, mostly.”

Dougie rubbed abrasively at the side of his head. “Aye, well, it's good tae keep yourself occupied somehow.” He turned to take up the same position as David. “So what brings you in here today?”

David reached out and took hold of the handle of a brush that stood against the wall opposite. He put his foot heavily on its head so that the bristles splayed out on the floor. “Well, I've got to go out to New York to do some business—and—as you can imagine, it's the last thing I bloody well feel like doing!”

Dougie crossed his arms and looked glumly down at his boots. “Aye, I can understand that.” He let out a long sigh and began picking at a callus on his finger. “Will ye be seeing Lieutenant Eggar when you're out there?”